This is the most important factor as per me in fundamental analysis of a stock. This coupled with a few of the related ratios should give you a fair idea about the worth of a stock.

Earning per share as the name indicates is the 'per share earning' of a company in a reported period. For all practical purposes it is advised to consider the last annual as well as the last quarter earning.

If a company has earned a profit of say 10000 US$ in last 3 months and US$ 25000 in last 12 months and the company has 10000 equity shares then, we arrive at the following earning per share values.

Annual EPS= US$ 25000/10000 = US$ 2.5 Earned per share in last year. Quarterly EPS = US$10000/ 10000 = US$ 1 Earned per share in last quarter. Annualized quarterly EPS = US$1 X 4 = US$ 4.

Now this can be used to analyze a company in the following ways:

1. Compare last 5 years EPS.
2. Look for a growth pattern.
3. If the EPS is fluctuating from +ve to -ve and vice versa, it may not be a good place to invest.
4. If the company operates in a cyclical industry, the annualized quarterly EPS may not be compared with the regular EPS.
5. Compare the growth rate with that of the industry.
6. Compare the growth rate with that of market and industry indices.

Now doing all these comparisons you should be in a place to adjudge the company as growth oriented or not.

Considerations: If the company has recently issued new shares, split shares, merged other companies etc. you may need to factor in those factors accordingly before you compare this with the previous figures

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